Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)

The Minister has been given a long opportunity to debate this point. Regardless of whether he has all of this data at his fingertips to prove Ireland has been uniquely good to young families, one must be below the minimum wage to qualify for a medical card that would give such hard-pressed families access to a GP.

In the part of Dublin city that I represent, so-called affordable housing is not available to young families on low incomes because they do not have enough money to meet the payments even when it is affordable. The point at which the Minister's subventions take effect, namely, at €28,000 for a couple buying a house, is ludicrously low. The Minister is providing no support to families that are trying to get on the housing ladder. The Minister will acknowledge that if such families are forced to rent, only €14 a week in tax relief is available. However, if they happen to be on welfare, they would get 95% of their rent paid. We are not in any way being sympathetic to, or supportive of, the needs of such families that are creating the next generation.

This society should judge itself by asking whether it provided an environment in which such young people could develop to their full potential. However, we hand-trip them at every hand's turn. We have failed to learn from the errors of others that experienced similar rapid economic growth. We did not create the requisite planning environment or social planning to deliver to such people and have seriously undersold them. I fully agree that tackling the home carer's credit is not the be all and end all. However, it is highly symbolic of the manner in which thinking on the Government side of the House and among those beyond politics who introduced such thinking has neglected such an important element of social development, which must partner economic development.

Such major failings in public policy mean we cannot talk about enormous economic success. Ireland has experienced such failings and the sooner the Government faces up to them, the sooner a meaningful debate on how to address them can begin. There is no point in sticking one's head in the sand and quoting the OECD glowingly about statistics that are meaningless to the real, concrete family life stories that Members are trying to address.

I am bitterly disappointed by the Minister's response to this debate. He quoted statistics to the effect that 40% are outside the tax system. Such people are outside the tax system because they earn less than the minimum wage.

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